DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived post-Murdoch era

is the robots.txt thing common practice?

yes, it's how the web works, but full marks to computer weekly for making it sound evil per se

http://www.bbc.co.uk/robots.txt
http://www.computerweekly.com/robots.txt

etc. etc.

cool, I didn't actually know that most websites use robots.txt, since so many of them are findable via web.archive.org

you use it to control which pages are findable, generally - though you can make the whole thing unfindable (fsvo 'unfindable'. search engine bots do not actually have to obey the commands of your robots.txt). how i remember the noindex nofollows of my youth.

yeah. not only does robots.txt have absolutely no effect on what can be seen by people: it's can be ignored by the crawlers too. book burning!

no political party has a legal obligation to abide by its election promises

true.

but deleting them is like a kid in a room with their hands over their eyes, thinking they're invisible.

Story has been barely reported and pretty much forgotten already it seems

Really? Have the newspapers not gone for a tale of a big organisation deleting massive amounts of embarrassing data off their internal systems?

# hi robots. you look nice today.
User-agent: *
Disallow:

:)

from http://ilxor.com/robots.txt

i 100% despise these guys and i wouldn't be surprised to the learn it was done for nefarious purposes, but this (removing old stuff from your own website and propagating those changes to search engines using robots.txt so search engines are not full of dead links) is also a totally normal and routine thing for any organization to do

Trimming dead links is good but making a link dead when it contains stuff that should arguably be on public record is nagl and not necessary. "Where are your speeches and press releases from before 2010 that used to be online" "oh we archived them to save space" - bullshit. There may be no legal obligation to keep this stuff but I can't see any reason for removing it other than revisionism.

i'm sure revisionism is part of the reason, it's just not "scandalous" in the literal sense so much as the usual cynical beige we expect from career pols

When you've already been on television and in every national newspaper saying these things it's impossible to think you could change history by adding them to your 'disallow' list. Also the stuff is still there, isn't it? It just isn't being indexed (or did I miss the bit were they actually deleted the content?).

It's possible they were thinking "when people search for our policy on X we want them to find the most recent statements rather than the (completely contradictory) things we said years ago" - which is still shady but kind of makes sense and isn't really the same as deleting your promises from the Internet.

Maybe if we get more scandalised about the usual cynical beige (bilge? Nah I like it) it will become less usual. Well a man can dream.

Labour have just set up a page saying this:

David Cameron’s solution to his cost of living crisis cannot be found

The page you are looking for might have been removed by David Cameron due to its inconvenient (for him) nature, had its name changed by Grant Shapps or is temporarily unavailable.

Please try the following:

· If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure it is spelled correctly
· Open this page and look for the information you want
· Click the Back button and find out about the alternative at http://www.labour.org.uk
· Click here to look for the deleted information on the Internet elsewhere

HTTP 404 – File not found
But more information is available here

Tell us which of the Tories broken promises you’re most angry about below:

http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/unflappable.gif

really excited to vote for one of these parties at the next election

http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/jezper/jezper1206/jezper120600182/14109707-arrows-going-up.jpg

here is the bit where i say i recognise that the pressures of a war zone are unimaginable to a civilian

here is the other bit where i say how fucking bored and depressed i am about hearing how hard it is out there for a war criminal

Touch harsh on Lily Allen

https://twitter.com/CockroachBasher/status/275725820616654848

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-says-superrich-are-putupon-minority-like-homeless-people-and-irish-travellers-8946661.html

Click the Back button and find out about the alternative at http://www.labour.org.uk

"Our fight for Britain starts here." Do they propose a nationwide boxing tournament?

But we're all in this together

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10461175/Labour-Well-scrap-benefits-for-under-25s.html

what is even the point of having an opposition any more

People under the age of 25 would be barred from breathing under proposals being considered by the Labour Party.

Cunts.

Another "me too" policy proposal from Labour, a blatant attempt to win back voters by trying to appear to be bigger Tory shitbags than the Tories. I fucking despair on two levels: 1) that politicians are so lacking in real ideas and policies that all they do is serve up the same reheated shit, 2) that the British public are so petty and bigoted that this kind of shit-on-the-poor politics is the only way to appeal to them.

They've already come out and said they're not doing it, as far as I can see:

http://labourlist.org/2013/11/reeves-says-axing-benefits-for-the-young-is-not-and-will-not-be-our-policy/

Speaks volumes that no one was surprised at the possibility though.

Usual political trick (used by both parties) of proposing a hardman policy to appeal to right wing voters, then saying "oh but we might not actually do that" to appeal to left wing voters.

A lot of the time it's just ineptitude and backpedaling, I think.

Telegraph people making mischief?

Missed this the other week, Ed trying to stop payday loan ads on kid's tv:

"I think it's wrong, it's not what should be happening and that's why a Labour government would stop them advertising during children's TV, because it's bad for young people, it's bad for families and it's bad for communities."

Mr Miliband said it was "just wrong" that payday lenders were "putting pressure on our kids to pester their parents".

ime kids are more likely to be a pain in the arse about expensive toys than Wonga loans thanks to tv ads

loan sharking is thriving thanks to everyone being fucking skint, not because of cartoon network

Marketed to dimwitted adults who fall for shiny, googly-eyed pseudo-Pixar mascot thingies. It's not as if there aren't plenty of those people about.

Given how much today's political leaders resemble googly-eyed characters, I'm going to start the Muppet Party. The slogan could be "Vote Muppet - you probably have been for the last few years anyway".

My partner works in mental healthcare and a lot of the people she works with have little-to-no concept of money and the consequences of debt. They'll spend till they have nothing left and when asked how they will cope, they just say 'I'll phone the number on TV'. Those companies are vampires.

My partner works in hr
My partner works in retail
My partner works in govt
My partner works in banking

Statement holds v close to true for substitution of above, non

Poorest families 'need more help over debt'

Solution: cut their benefits, freeze their wages but allow them more credit.

Sorry that was meant to be a link: Poorest families 'need more help over debt'

http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2013/11/20/cameron-apologises-for-mind-altering-substances-banter

#bantz

There is literally nothing worse than hearing these turds "banter" like the posh school debating club tossers they are.

The Sun laying into the PM on environmental issues?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BZlidN9IQAAoJ1T.jpg

sure is a crazy old world

My partner works in hr
My partner works in retail
My partner works in govt
My partner works in banking

Statement holds v close to true for substitution of above, non

lol, is this an attempt to play Cap'n Save-a-loanshark?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/world/middleeast/talks-with-iran-on-nuclear-deal-hang-in-balance.html

i like how they haven't bothered to annotate william hague

lol, is this an attempt to play Cap'n Save-a-loanshark?

― In times of osterity, these Eton-educated poshboys (Bananaman Begins),

christ no, just sayin that you dont have to work in or around mental health to meet lots of ppl with no concept of personal finance or w/e, which is why these fuckers are printing money

i like Ed Mili more than i did after hearing this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/castaway/f31add9b#b03j8srb

>>>>>>>>>>> that

god what a biddable fuckboy he is

i know that his choices were worked thru by a PR group but is that really the best they could do?